School Fire Alarms

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I know that there is a fire alarm community out there that knows every single fire alarm device out there. Here is my current knowledge on fire alarms at my schools.

At my elementary school, the main notification appliances there were many Wheelock AS horn strobes mounted on both the ceilings and walls. Let me just say that those alarms have got to be the loudest electronic alarms Wheelock has created. They have a higher frequency than most horn strobes and are ear rapes on YouTube. The alarms at the school appeared to be set on 110 cd (candela) due to the strobes’ high brightness and medium or high volume since the noise was loud everywhere, even from the field (at least 150-200 yards away). The newer library had a System SpectrAlert Advance horn strobe on one of its walls, which are like the Wheelock AS horn strobes, but a little louder. I had no hearing protection of any kind, so I became deathly afraid of those alarms, which were all set on the temporal code-3 pattern we hear from smoke detectors.

The alarms at my middle school were System Sensor SpectrAlert Advance horn strobes with random candela settings on the ceilings of all classrooms except for the trailer classrooms. The trailer classrooms had random alarms, with some having dual-action pull stations. Some of the alarms in the trailers included Siemens mini-horn strobes (mini-horns equipped with strobes), a 2nd-generation Gentex SHG horn strobe (which sounds identical to mechanical horn tone of the well-liked Gentex Commander series), what appears to be the cover of a Simplex 2901-9838 mechanical horn outside of one trailer, and a Wheelock NS horn strobe (which sounds identical to the Wheelock ZNS horn strobe and the Wheelock Exceder horn strobe). The gym had System Sensor SpectrAlert Advance speaker strobes protected by covers and pull stations with stoppers. One of the classrooms connected to the gym had one of those speaker strobes as well along with a remote strobe from the same series. The gym’s atrium had two remote strobes set on 15 and 30 cd each. Outside the classroom were some weatherproof System Sensor SpectrAlert Advance horns and Wheelock 32T mechanical horns severely damaged by weather. Thankfully, none of the alarms at the school were set off during fire drills because students complained that they were too loud. An intercom announcement would be used instead. I thought that replacing the horns and horn strobes with speakers and speaker strobes would have been better along with a voice evacuation system, but it would be too expensive.

My high school primarily has notification appliances manufactured by Wheelock. Many weatherproof Wheelock AH horns (not again) and some Simplex 2901-9838 horns appear in the hallways. Most classrooms do not have notification appliances, but the trailers have some. The outside of some of the trailers have System Sensor MA sounders, but there is a System Sensor SpectrAlert Classic mini-horn inside one of them with a pull station. The hallways of some of the buildings have ceiling-mounted Wheelock AS horn strobes of either color. One of the ones from the English/history building is dangling from the ceiling as if broken or currently being repaired. The main gym has Wheelock Exceder horn strobes and the event center gym has Wheelock E70 speaker strobes and Wheelock Exceder remote strobes protected with covers. The girls locker room has at least 2 Wheelock Exceder remote strobes on the ceiling and a Wheelock Exceder horn strobe on the ceiling.

Long post, sorry!

...... I don't understand a word of what you just wrote . I'm sorry! All I know is that fire alarms are way too loud! Do you have a special interest in fire alarms?

More of a love/hate relationship.

Got it. That makes sense- I have a great deal of knowledge on some things I hate/am scared of because it makes it less scary. The more I know about it, the better because then I am able to deal with the unexpected. I wish I knew what types of fire alarms my school has! How did you find out?

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Got it. That makes sense- I have a great deal of knowledge on some things I hate/am scared of because it makes it less scary. The more I know about it, the better because then I am able to deal with the unexpected. I wish I knew what types of fire alarms my school has! How did you find out?[/quote]

It first started when I began watching fire alarm videos out of boredom. I was fascinated how they could identify what alarms were used, so I looked up images of fire alarm devices and identified what the ones from my elementary school looked like using my photographic memory. I watched a YouTube video about the Wheelock AS horn strobe and, sure enough, that was the alarm (since it sounded the same). I managed to identify the other alarms the same way.

Wow! You must be ridiculously smart . I can't believe you can identify them from memory! That is awesome.

Everyone tells me that. Yes, my IQ is higher than the average person my age due to my photographic memory and excellent visual processing skills. Unfortunately, I do not own any notification appliances apart from the smoke alarms in my home.

Care to know what these are? Most of the smoke alarms in the hallway are Kidde ionization detectors, meaning that they use a radioactive element to determine how much smoke obscures particles. There are only two First Alert ionization detectors, with one of them being a combination smoke and carbon monoxide detector. That detector is also the only carbon monoxide detector in the house. The detector in my bedroom used to be a First Alert ionization detector of the same model, but it was replaced with a First Alert photoelectric detector since my parents did not know that they had to clean out the sensors when it beeped incessantly. Dust or bugs getting in the sensors is actually one of the main causes of a false alarm, oddly enough. Photoelectric detectors detect smoke like ionization detectors, but they are meant for detecting slow, smoldering fires by using a beam of light in place of radioactive material. These fires are more dangerous than blazing fires since it is smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning that most often kills people in fires. Therefore, photoelectric detectors are very unlikely to be the source of false alarms. That newer alarm in my bedroom has only sounded two or three times ever since I got it installed, making me wonder if it actually has power or not.

Although these kinds of things are not part of a special interest that I might have as an autistic person, they add to my vast scientific knowledge.

Wow! You know a lot about smoke alarms too! That was actually very interesting. Thank you for teaching me something. Do you know a lot about other topics as well? You certainly have a very vast scientific knowledge!

I am stemming this conversation to a new topic. I hope to hear a reply!

I am about AP-level in science (pretty advanced) and very passionate about it as well. Therefore, I have decided to take an honors-level biology class, which was the closest thing to AP on the registration sheet. It is extremely easy for me despite being honors-level, having a high-90 for my grade there. I am also highly interested in the medical field. Now, I know some people may racially stereotype me as a future doctor since I’m Asian. And yes, I might. However, if I do, I plan on being a neurosurgeon. There, I can learn how people’s brains work and put my great attention to extremely small details to great use (neurosurgery is the hardest specialty of surgery).

Through thorough people-watching and personal experience, I have learned some degree of adolescent behavior and psychology. For example, I know that people may be ignorant if their frontal lobes have not matured. I know the real reason why I’ve been rejected and possibly provoked by the female freshmen in the popular clique. One seemingly intended to get me in trouble as a form of bullying (shame on you, G, if you’re reading this). I became enraged and envious when she rejected my rather innocent offer to become friends. She tried to incite me to get myself in trouble whenever I lost interest in her. Ever since, I do not speak to that girl at all since I consider her too untrustworthy to even greet.

My photographic memory bests my high IQ and knowledge of human behavior, though. I can see and remember the exact things I did when I was five along with what I ate during a mini-party at my preschool special day class.

Despite my special interests and abilities, my therapists think I am socially inept due to my “difficulty in relating to others.” By this, I mean that I am somewhat choosy about who I want to be close to. Many neurotypicals do not understand how my photographic memory works and may even be jealous of its extent. For me, the photographic memory is simply a type of flashback involving everything that happened in a memory, including small details such as what my old friends looked like and what we did together. My natural mindset has become the scientific mindset, being more interested in the recording of concrete evidence before claims can proven. I’m the ONLY one in my directed studies class that takes honors classes, but I do not mean to brag here .

Long post, sorry!

Please ignore that last post. I don’t know how to work my way around creating a new topic from a post.

That's okay! If you want me to ignore it, I will, but I don't see anything wrong with it! You just want to share your experiences. It is still related to the original topic. You must ace all your classes, though .

Hi guys, I’m going to take a break from posting anything for a while since nobody is responding to my posts. I will still be here at Wrong Planet, but I will not create new posts or reply until I see someone elses first. Thanks for cooperating.

This is really one of the coolest posts I've ever seen!

I knew nothing about fire alarms, but I like all kinds of mechines and I'm really curious about how these things work. (I once tried to install an infrared detector in our dorms to anti-spy our dormroom teachers, but the detector is riduculously huge and conspicuous so we finally give up on that idea.) And by machines, I mean EVERYTHING that has a mechanism behind it, so i guess human brains are also mechines.

I'm also an Asian and I live in China, but I'm a neurotypical. I'm really interested in autism! Maybe it's because I'm fascinated by how different kinds of mind work. And I'm also very interested in neuroscience and ethology.

I've studied AP-level computer science and physics and chemistry. I didn't choose biology though because people told me it requires tons of vocabs. My mother language is Chinese and I'm terribly bad at reciting English vocabulary. I guess I'll try it next year after all my college applications are settled, or I'll try it in college.